Effect of uphill and downhill walking on walking performance in geriatric patients using a wheeled walker

Abstract

Background

Wheeled walkers are recommended to improve walking performance in older persons and to encourage and assist participation in daily life. Nevertheless, using a wheeled walker can cause serious problems in the natural environment. This study aimed to compare uphill and downhill walking with walking level in geriatric patients using a wheeled walker. Furthermore, we investigated the effect of using a wheeled walker with respect to dual tasking when walking level.

Methods

A total of 20 geriatric patients (median age 84.5 years) walked 10 m at their habitual pace along a level surface, uphill and downhill, with and without a standard wheeled walker. Gait speed, stride length and cadence were assessed by wearable sensors and the walk ratio was calculated.

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Notes

Acknowledgements

The authors thank Aileen Currie for proofreading the manuscript. Data collection was performed by Lukas Bollenbach and Tobias Scharpfenecker. This research did not receive any specific grant from funding agencies in the public, commercial, or not-for-profit sectors.

Compliance with ethical guidelines

Conflict of interests

C. Becker has a financial relationship to Lilly company and Bosch company. U. Lindemann, M. Schwenk, Syn Schmitt, M. Weyrich and W. Schlicht declare that they have no competing interests.

Written informed consent was obtained from all individual participants included in the study prior to data collection.

All procedures performed in this study involving human participants were in accordance with the standards of the ethic committee of the local university and with the 1964 Helsinki declaration and its later amendments or comparable ethical standards.